LG Optimus Pad Review

Introduction:

You've already heard about the LG Optimus Pad – the first tablet with support for 3D with dual-lens camera and a pair of anaglyph glasses for tricking your brain into thinking about the third dimension, but will the 8.9-inch tablet's 3D trickery be enough to lure the Android Honeycomb tablet buyer into a purchase? LG claims that it's the elongated form and better overall ergonomics of the slate that give it a unique typing advantage as your fingers can reach every letter in portrait mode, but except for its weird tall body and 3D cameras we found it hard to differentiate this tablet among the onslaught of slates out there.

Sure, the Optimus Pad, known as the T-Mobile G-Slate in the States, has a pretty impressive 1GHz dual-core NVIDIA Tegra 2 chip running under the hood, but nowadays nearly every tablet has that horsepower. Moreover, it's not even close to winning in the slimness battle staged by Apple's iPad 2 and picked on by the Samsung Galaxy Tab in its 8.9-inch and 10.1-inch variety.

Design:

After the release of the iPad 2, it seems that tablet designers have started collectively singing the slimness mantra and rightfully so – apart from the wow effect of seeing something so thin, holding the load of a seven to ten inch slate in your hand is not fun and slimmer usually translates into lighter. Well, the LG Optimus Pad has certainly overlooked those trends as it's nearly 50% thicker than the iPad 2 at 0.47 inches (12mm) and despite it's smaller screen, it's heavier as well tipping the scales at 21.87 ounces (620 g) compared to the 21.2 oz (601 g) of the second-gen iPad.




But despite our disappointment with the tablet's dimensions and weight, we still appreciated the comfortable soft touch back and nice sloped edges contributing to a refined look. Moreover, LG has borrowed the curves and feel of the LG Optimus 2X bringing instant brand recognition for people who have used the phone. The solid build reassures you in the tablet's quality and even its substantial weight contributes to that feeling at first, but longer sessions (and we can imagine ourselves reading a book for hours) tend to tire the hand.

The 8.9-inch LCD screen on the Optimus Pad sports a peculiar resolution of 1280 x 768 justified by the prolonged body of the tablet. The aspect ratio is 15:9 – wide enough for watching movies, which is an area in which the tablet shines with its full HD video recording and playback. Colors are bright, reproduced accurately with excellent viewing angles, but disappointing sunlight legibility. The detailed resolution however actually helps with text legibility a great deal, alleviating browsing and reading along the way. The screen dominates the front side of the Optimus Pad, but neatly up top LG has placed a 2-megapixel front facing snapper and a proximity sensor.




The plastic sides of the device hold a microUSB and miniHDMI ports on the left (if you look at the tablet in portrait orientation), while on the right you have a mic and volume rocker. Tucked in the upper part is the lock key, which our fingers constantly struggled finding, but when they did it reacted with a light distinct response, so pressing it is not a problem. Slightly to the left are a speaker, a 3.5mm headset jack and a proprietary charger. Finally, the bottom of the tablet houses its stereo speakers.



The soft touch back is one of the accents of the Optimus Pad design attracting attention with a dual-camera setup for 3D capture. The 5-megapixel snappers are capable of full HD 1080p video capture in 2D and 720p video in 3D. The cameras are nearly an inch apart while a strip of brushed metal with a discretely engraved Google logo draws a line right in the middle of the tablet. While there is no easy way of changing the battery, the upper part of the back cover is actually removable so you can insert your SIM card for data or manually reset the tablet via a dedicated button.

Interface:

The LG Optimus Pad runs Android 3.0 Honeycomb with the dual 1GHz brains provided by NVIDIA's Tegra 2 platform. You'd think that's enough for a smooth performance, but after playing with the super fast iPad 2 our spoiled minds couldn't help but notice a slight lag in the transitions. It's not something that will annoy you on a regular basis, but it is perceptible. Apart from that you're treated with the cold neon cells of the futuristic vanilla Honeycomb. You should know all about it – it's tailor-made for tablets, but it takes some time to get used to with the weirdly (dis)placed navigation buttons, comes with apps, but nearly no tablet-specific ones, and it feels a bit “Google beta,” but people will still use it.


Unlike the U.S. version, the Optimus Pad comes with no preinstalled apps except for Polaris Office with document viewing and editing support, and the 3DCamcorder and 3DPlayer apps. Everything else is well documented in our thorough Android Honeycomb walkthrough, so feel free to check it out for more details.

Contacts and Organizer:

With Google standing behind Honeycomb it's no wonder that getting the traditionally rich in details cloud-stored contacts from your Google account is a breeze. The added value of a bigger screen has prompted the company to use a dual-pane layout allowing you to quickly browse through contact information which includes their social networking identities as well.

The Calendar won't surprise you in the Optimus Pad either - and that's a good thing. Here you have three standard views by month, week or day, once again enriched to show more information in a dual-pane setup.

Other applications like the clock are somewhat shockingly missing basic functions like a world clock, stopwatch and timer. In addition, it looks like the Calculator has been overly simplified with way too large buttons inconsistent with what's found in other apps. Finally, Honeycomb has one key advantage over iOS and that's voice commands which are integrated system-wide. The LG Optimus Pad is no exception and you can use voice input for your searches and even navigation in Google Maps.



Messaging:

The 8.9-inch screen occupies a middle ground in tablets – smaller than the spacious 10 inchers  and larger than the 7-inch tablets, 8.9 inches on the diagonal should be a perfect size for two handed typing according to LG. We hear those arguments, but we find it at least strange to see that despite LG's focus on the better typing experience on the Optimus Pad, the tablet comes with no notes application whatsoever. Sure, you can go to the Android Market and fix that right away, but such an omission looks strange. Except for that we actually loved the portrait QWERTY keyboard which was a perfect fit for our thumbs reaching right at the middle so every key was within easy reach.



When it comes to the messaging applications you have the traditionally rich Gmail app, which comes with even more options to capitalize on the extra screen space on a tablet, and the Email app. The Gmail application displays two panes simultaneously so you can quickly access your emails, but then when composing a message it switches into a single pane so you can concentrate on that single task and  have more space for the on screen keyboard.

Just like Gmail, the Email app allows you to quickly switch between accounts so you can manage all your inboxes easily. The advantage of the latter app however is that you can get a combined view of all your accounts giving you a bird's-eye look at the number of unread messages in different mailboxes. You can also add your corporate email account but unlike popular messaging services, you'll need some more details like the server name to get it working properly.



Internet and Connectivity:

If you have a tablet, chances are the web is your dwelling place for a large portion of the day, so seamless browsing is of utmost importance. The stock Honeycomb browser supports tabs and with the power of a dual-core processor browsing is truly a breeze. After downloading the latest 10.3 version of Adobe Flash, which didn't come pre-installed on our tablet, we got to enjoy the web at its fullest. Pinch-to-zoom, double taps and text reflow – all works well as it should. We still find puzzling the fact that Honeycomb tablets identify as phones on most websites resulting in you getting the simplified mobile version of pages, while at the same time we're certain that the Optimus Pad could well handle the full load of even graphically intensive websites.



In terms of connectivity, the Optimus Pad comes equipped with Wi-Fi b/g/n radio, an aGPS unit for precise location and Bluetooth 2.1.

Camera:

The camera interface doesn't differ from the standard Honeycomb one, but there's nothing wrong with that as it has plenty of options. Leaving the question of the plausibility of including a camera in a tablet aside, we have to admit that numerous settings like white balance (incandescent, daylight, fluorescent), color effects and time lapse are all welcome in the camcorder mode, while in camera mode you also get eight scene selections, exposure and focus mode tweaks. When shooting standard 2D pictures or video, the tablet uses its left camera unit.





Unfortunately the quality of the images we took was rather average with slightly washed out colors and lack of much detail. The shots from the five megapixel camera were often noisy, especially when it got darker, and lacked sharpness. But – disappointed with the camera performance – we hoped that Tegra 2's ability to process 1080p full HD videos at 30 frames per second would compensate. It's true that the Optimus Pad sports some neat tweaks to the camcorder like time lapse footage and things are really looking better when it comes to video recording, but still some dropped frames and poor automatic exposure adjustments when you switch between well-lit and dim scenes spoil the good impression. We also wish there was some kind of video editing application, but alas we couldn't even find a way to trim videos.



LG Optimus Pad Sample Video:



LG Optimus Pad Indoor Sample Video:



LG takes pride in making the first 3D-enabled Honeycomb tablet and to achieve that effect it has included a dual-camera setup on the back. In concert, the two 5 megapixel cameras on the back can record 3D videos in HD 720p resolution. To access that feature, you have the standalone 3DCamcorder application by LG, which is a rather basic app giving you the opportunity to change only the white balance and depth of the 3D effect. Increasing the standard 3D effect however might lead to eye fatigue and even losing the feeling of depth, so we're not surprised to see LG recommend that children under 5 or pregnant women should not watch 3D and “immediately, stop using it.” You might also find useful the tip warning you not to record objects closer than 1.5 meters.



LG Optimus Pad 3D Sample Video:



So after getting acquainted with all the peculiarities of 3D, you can already record your first video. What's next? The 3DPlayer app allows you to quickly upload it to YouTube in all of its anaglyph glory. And anaglyph stands for a type of stereoscopic 3D effect using two different colors like red and cyan. That's the exact reason why you get a pair of red-cyan anaglyph glasses with the Optimus Pad in some markets. And yes, that's the exact same 3D people got fuzzy about 50 years ago, so you can watch it on pretty much every display given that you have the glasses. And yes, you lose plenty of color information, so don't expect stellar quality. It's funny for a while, but carrying shades everywhere is just impractical and we see 3D more as an interesting addition to toy with in a tablet rather than a central feature.



Multimedia:

Multimedia is in the core of a good tablet experience and that's why the screen quality is of such paramount importance when we speak about tablets. The one on the Optimus Pad comes with a detailed resolution of 1280 x 768 pixels, but don't expect to be able to make good use of it in direct sunlight. Except for that it handles media smoothly – we threw 1080p full HD videos at it and it didn't even stutter, the picture quality is top notch with vibrant bright colors. We managed to play 1080p MPEG-4 files on the tablet, but DivX/Xvid encoded movies could also be played after a simple download of the free RockPlayer on the Android Market. The tablet doesn't come with a microSD slot, so you're limited to the 32 gigs of local storage.

The audio quality on the tablet is also above average, but it falls short of the outstanding loud speakers on, say, the Motorola XOOM. Nevertheless, music playback is reasonably loud on LG's slate and even at max volume you can't hear much of a distortion. When it comes to managing music, you have the standard Honeycomb application with impressive huge album art carousel. You just flip through the covers to get to the album of your choice. While that might please the eye, function-wise the player lacks some features like an equalizer, so it's a mixed bag.

 

Finally, pictures are displayed in the Gallery application, which tilts around with your tablet, but except for that you get a very simple interface. Overly simplified, we'd say, as editing options in the image gallery are limited to just rotating images and cropping them. On the flipside of things, sharing is well covered with the possibility to upload images to Picasaweb, as well as share them via email, Facebook/Twitter and Bluetooth.



Software:

The LG Optimus Pad is all about vanilla Honeycomb, so that means you get Google's amazing suite of apps including Gmail, YouTube and Maps. The latter has been recoded to fit the full screen of a tablet but except for that you have all familiar features like Street View, 3D view for larger cities, along with navigation.



The YouTube app however has been completely overhauled. Now, you have a huge 3D-esque wall with all the popular videos displayed on it. After picking a video, the screen splits in two panes with your video showing on the left while on the right you can see either related videos or comments.

Oh, and are you looking for any other Honeycomb-optimized apps? No, sirs and madams, there are virtually none of them. Okay, there are tens of applications optimized for tablets, and by tens we mean that we haven't seen more than 50. Heck, even Facebook and Twitter applications for Honeycomb are hard to find. We can't go over the fact that trying to open a couple of apps on the market pushed us into “force close” zone, so some instabilities and a raw aftertaste are definitely noticeable.

Performance:

The LG Optimus Pad has all the dual-core 1GHz guts for Honeycomb to fly. But it doesn't – it's smooth for the most part, but it sometimes lags, sometimes apps crash – and that seems like a software issue. We don't believe that LG can put the blame on rushing the tablet to market like Motorola could with the XOOM. But if that occasional stutter of the tablet is not a huge stopper for your Android enthusiasm, you'd be happy to find out that the Optimus Pad delivers a solid day of battery life with moderate usage. It can't match the longevity on the iPad 2 yet, but it's not that far from it.

Conclusion:  

Back at when the LG Optimus Pad was revealed at MWC this February, things looked bright for LG. 3D was picking pace and the iPad 2 was still an unreal product of the distant future. In that context, the LG Optimus Pad looks pretty adequate, but given the current reality of things, it falls short in just way too many departments.

First and foremost, LG seems to have missed a year's development on design (read: thickness and weight) of tablets giving us a somewhat bulky device. Even the solid build quality and premium feel can't make up for that.

Secondly, it fails miserably in the price war – its price tag in Germany stands at the mind-boggling $1,385 (945 euro) off contract, while over in the UK it currently sells for $1,230 (750 pounds). That's nearly twice the price of an iPad and even more than what Motorola would charge for its 10-inch XOOM, which clearly tips the scales in favor of the latter two.

Third comes 3D. For many it's turned out to be more of a gimmick – a fancy new feature that one would hardly ever use rather than the key differentiator of a product. And even more so for the LG Optimus Pad which relies on anaglyph glasses for viewing it. So finally, while LG's tablet does come with a great screen and 3D, it fails to capitalize on the 3D as its cameras are rather average and it seems dated when you look at its bulkiness. It can be a fun thing to play around, but given the steep price, we'd only look at it with a huge carrier subsidy.

LG Optimus Pad Video Review: